The only impeccable writers are those who never wrote.

You know more of a road by having traveled it than by all the conjectures and descriptions in the world.

Familiarity confounds all traits of distinction; interest and prejudice take away the power of judging.

We judge of others for the most part by their good opinion of themselves; yet nothing gives such offense or creates so many enemies, as that extreme self-complacency or superciliousness of manner, which appears to set the opinion of every one else at defiance.

The most violent friendships soonest wear themselves out.

They are, as it were, train-bearers in the pageant of life, and hold a glass up to humanity, frailer than itself. We see ourselves at second-hand in them: they show us all that we are, all that we wish to be, and all that we dread to be. What brings the resemblance nearer is, that, as they imitate us, we, in our turn, imitate them. There is no class of society whom so many persons regard with affection as actors.

Books wind into the heart.